Monthly Archives: February 2016

Left Forest Knolls happy and stoked! Biked through the redwood forest along the creek and then came up through the green hills of dotted cows and oak trees. It was getting hot so I stopped to take my sweatshirt off when my bungee cord flung out of my hands over the side of a bridge and into a creek……

The cord literally holds my life together on the back of my bike. I had a bunch of hemp cord with me and could have figured out a way to tie it all together but I saw a tree a little ways down the creek and decided to climb down to retrieve my precious bungee…. Once I got down there I realized it was going to be a lot harder to get back up….After getting a little dirty, wet and scraped up I was back on the road.

Ran into my friends from the Marin Bicycle Museum who were on their way to Bodega bay to celebrate valentines. Love seeing new friends on the road! 🙂

After 50 miles of riding I made it to Bodega Bay tired and sweaty looking for a place to set up my tent. Biked around the campground receiving weird looks until this lovely couple smiled and waved to me. 🙂 Kristin & Daniel let me camp on their site with them and their family. They shared their food, stories and laughs with me. We had a fun night by the fire and then I was back on the road in the morning. My goal was to make it to Mendocino before the rain storm giving myself 2 days to bike 100 miles…. Thats when I noticed my arm began to itch…..

Biking down hills is way more fun then bike/walking my bike up them but I have to be careful of bumps in the road or my whole pack will go flying off! This happened and within one mile I found Melinda, who was pulled over to the side of the road, saw me biking and offered me cookies! haha the world is full of beautiful folks! 🙂

The hills of Sonoma county remind me of Big Sur and so did the non-existant shoulder. Biking on these roads I have to trust in the divine universe that cars will see me and maybe hear my bell that I ring obsessively to all those who pass. 😉

Riding through so many beautiful places its overwhelming to see the amount of trash on the side of the road… most of it being single-use coffee cups…. How hard is it to bring our own to shops??? The mile markers keep me going and bring me joy when I have completed another mile. Slowly beginning to admit that I had the first stages of the great guardian of the forest rash on my arm I was determined to get to Mendocino, thinking I would wait out the rain and find a hippie community that would have some healing ointments for my rash. Damn maybe jumping down in that creek, sweating in the same outfit for days on my bike and curling up in my sleeping bag were not the best counter actions for the oak oils……

Biking through mendo county it was foggy and the air seemed colder with the approaching storm. I encountered the logging trucks that everyone had warned me about…. they cannot hear my bell….their whole rig shakes the ground and I quickly dismount off my bike and hug the side of the road and wave in hopes they will see me. Tears fall when I see all of the fallen tree angels in their truck bed. Why are we still cutting down trees? down forests? To make paper????? Cardboard for amazon shipments of stuff we don’t need and the huge pile of junk mail that comes to us with out consent….

Why use trees that take generations to grow when we could use HEMP for the paper we actually need. Durable. STRONG and grows like a weed! No need to cut down old growth forests when Mother Earth provides this incredibly versatile plant that we can all grow! One acre of hemp (grown in a single season) yields as much paper as up to 4 acres of trees! I could go on about the power of hemp in this revolution and its long list of uses but this incredible plant deserves a blog post of its own, stay tuned!

Big trucks in general are hazardous on the road and most of them are transporting packaged junk “food” and plastic bottled soda to brainwashed america. Big trucks got no reason in my book.

Made it to Mendocino just in time for the storm. Stocked up on some soup fixings at the local health food store and made my way to Jug Handle Creek Farm in hopes of finding a hippie community and heal this growing oak rash on my arm.

…………………The next few days were a blur……………………..Arrived at this beautiful nature center/organic farm but due to the time of year and stormy weather I was alone in this eco-hostel…….. I got terribly sick with food poisoning upon arrival and stayed in bed for two days. I couldn’t keep any food down and my guardian oak rash had exploded to all parts of my body…. Lightening flashes, rain pelting the roof, thunder shaking the creeky old house….so many empty rooms…..no internet…..no cell phone reception…no pictures ( I got this one online)…..Just me, guardian oak spirit and my delirious thoughts to keep me company……

After a few days I felt strong enough to bike to Fort Bragg just 5 miles north and find some medicine for my rash. Now I am in a hotel healing and I am in need of some help. I wasn’t expecting to stay in a spot for so long, let alone at a hotel and I think I need a couple more nights as I wait for my oak rash to subside before I can get back on the road…My budget is dwindling and I could use some funds to get me through the rest of my tour. If you have some abundance to share I would be forever grateful! 🙂 ❤

Enjoyed a relaxing morning in Half Moon Bay and met up with Edmundo Larenas, the chair of the San Mateo Surfrider chapter. He was on his way to Morro Bay for the Coastal Commission meeting to advocate for the Executive Director Dr. Charles Lester to remain in his position as one of the few anti-development voices in the commission. The word on the street is that the other commissioners wanted to fire him to be able to say yes to developers and yes to more $ in their pockets. The Coastal Commission decides if areas get developed or protected.

Over a thousand activists coalesced in Morro Bay and spoke up to save the California Coast. Sadly, by a 5-7 vote, Lester was fired. This puts the future of the untouched California coastline up in the air but also unites activists to watch the commission closer than ever.

Biking from Half Moon Bay to SF was beautiful and interesting. Its crazy to feel the energy shifting from the wild rugged coast to the city. While riding through the mountains is physically challenging, mentally it is incredibly peaceful and serene. There is no getting lost because there is only one road and I can stop off where ever I wish to pee, drink some water and rest. While mostly flat, the city presents its own challenges of getting lost, the abundance of cars and figuring out where I can keep my bike safely..

So far I have always got to my destination As I began riding out of golden gate park, I was nervous about finding my way around the city. I started talking with the cyclist next to me, a young woman named Margo who grew up in Oregon and moved to the city last year. She showed me “the wiggle”, a green bike way through the city avoiding hills and taking me exactly where I needed to go! Feeling held and embraced by all the angels around me! Thank you Margo!

Met up with my girlfriend from high school Julia Li and stayed at her place in the mission. It was so wonderful re-kin-necting with her and hearing all about her life in SF. She has some gnarly stairs entering her apartment and getting all my gear and bicycle up them was a task! 😉

Day 9:

Biked to Mill Valley over the Golden Gate Bridge this morning to interview Bea Johnson, author of Zero Waste Home . I borrowed her book from the library a couple years ago and it inspired me on my journey of zero waste living and simplifying my life.

On my tour I have been using an App that Bea created called BULK. It is an interactive map application for smartphones that shows people where the closest bulk food location is to them for zero waste shopping while on the road. It has SAVED me on my zero waste bike tour and I am so grateful that this awesome app is completely free! Talking with her I found out that apps are expensive to manage if they are free due to the constant updating of phones. Her and her family and poured over $5,000 into the app to keep it going but it’s getting difficult for them to do it all by themselves. So right now she has an indie-go-go campaign to #SaveTheBulkApp and she can use all the help she can get! Please check it out and support the Zero Waste Movement! 🙂

I am grateful and stoked my zero waste idol turned out to be so down to Earth and sweet! She loved my bicycle and told me her story of biking from SF to LA with her husband and two boys last year! We bonded over our love for finding cool things while picking up trash and she told me about her local reuse store that she borrowed her biking gear from for her tour. I have a full interview with her and will share with you all at the end of my journey in my video so stay tuned! 🙂

Biking away from Mill Valley I was singing to myself and smiling super big! While riding through Sausalito I heard someone calling my name, I look over and see my friend Heidi Harmon from SLO had pulled over her car to say hi! Both of us were so shocked to see each other we just kept hugging and laughing! haha She was on her way to see Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist punk rock protest group based out of Moscow.

Kept on riding and made my way over the Golden Gate for the second time, watching the sunset over the pacific, I ran into my northbound bike tour buddy Tito! He gave me a hard time for going south across the golden gate, saying that Oregon is the other direction. haha!

Small world and we are all kin-nected.. as if it couldn’t get even smaller I was biking back through the city back and heard someone say, “ Yeah! Zero waste bike tour” when I was waiting at a stop sign…what!?! Surprised I turned around and met a sweet guy named Owen who used to live in SLO and follows my blog! Such a trip! Loving all the sacred synchronisities of this trip! 🙂

Day 10&11:

Packed up my life again and made my way to Pier 96 to get a tour of SF’s Recycling Center.

Robert Reed was the guide for me and a group of foreign dignitaries from Italy, Canada, Switzerland touring this beast of a “recycling” center. 630 tons of materials are processed here daily, most of it paper. So many resources are extracted and used Tons of cardboard from the excessive amount of online shopping.

Localization is again a cure for this outsourced online consumerism. The boxes/packaging are made from cut down trees, trucked to lumber mills, processed into paper to be shipped to be packed with something to be shipped to be sold at a store or sold to an online customer. When you could buy/share something with someone in your local community and make a new friend!

While recycling is branded as an “eco” action, in reality it is a huge PR campaign to keep us from thinking about source reduction. Recycling perpetuates our single-use disposable culture and wastes tons of resources in every step of the process. While recycling is a last resort for materials the first is what the Earth naturally does, Compost! Recology has a waste zero goal and has the largest compost program in the country. Composting 650 tons every day, they have a program that gathers all the food scrapes from restaurants and homes.

Robert Reed, compost advocate, tour guide and my host for a couple nights showed us all this beautiful video about the importance of compost and healthy soil for a healthy planet. After the tour we all shared lunch at the Recology office, while everyone else was in a suit and tie I was sporting my tie-die tour outfit and backwards hat. 😉

I had a wonderful time staying with Robert, his daughter August, and two dogs Lucky & Peanut. We shared a nice dinner with Robert’s friend Mark over looking the city and talked about the revolution out of our bank & tank economy and into a sharing one. Mark said when he was young he thought the revolution was a sprint, as he got older he thought it was a marathon and now he realizes its a relay race, passing the baton to a younger generation.

Day 12: Rode out early in the morning to meet up with another girlfriend from high school, Christine Liu. She lives in Berkeley where she is getting her masters in neuroscience, my plan was to stay with her for a few days but then I found out I couldn’t ride my bicycle across the Bay bridge! They are working on creating a bike path but won’t have it done for at least another year. So X-tine and I met at the beautiful Rainbow Grocery of SF. I could have spent hours there…it had the largest bulk section i’ve ever seen!! Pre-made food galore all in bulk! Christine is also an activist working with homeless people and the ever growing issue of gentrification. So awesome to re-kin-nect with my old friend and still be on the same wave length when it comes to our generation standing up for a better world.

Said see you later to SF and rode across the golden gate for the third time. Fell in love with a the sweet little town of Fairfax up the valley from SF, a place where chain stores are not allowed and mountain biking was invented! They even had a museum all about bicycles, The Marin Museum of Bicycling, where I met Marc & Lena, sweethearts and bicycle enthusiasts!

After climbing a big hill I rode into Forest Knolls, home of revolutionary artists Richard and Judith Lang. Since 1999 they have been picking up trash off Keyhoe beach in the Point Reyes national seashore and creating incredible works of art!

They live in a magical faerieland on top of a big hill overlooking a redwood forest. They showed me their beautiful garden, art studios and their trash art barn at the bottom of the hill. The lady bug medicine was strong at their place and they told me that its the lady bugs time of year.

Check out their story in this video.

Their home overflows with creativity and fun! They have art everywhere and showed me their catalogs of pieces they have made all over the world to spark conversations about waste and consumerism. Judith even knitted her wedding dress out of plastic bags!! Inspired and stoked on their art and joyful spirits!

They invited me to stay the night and shared stories with me about the 60s, the back to the land movement, anti-war and civil rights. Watching Vietnam on the screens in their homes, the news reporting deaths and friends coming back in body bags, people were out in the streets enraged and advocating for a healthy planet.

Richard grew up in DC during all the protests of Vietnam and told me about the revolutionary leader Abbie Hoffman.

“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.” – Abbie Hoffman

My question is, what happened? We have the same things happening now the permaculture movement, anti-war and black lives matter….but we also have a distracted and disempowered culture brainwashed by ads, technology, etc telling us that everything will be okay as long as we go shopping…..Back then the war was on the television screen of everyones home, the revolution was more up front and personal. Today its hardly recognized in our culture of distraction and advertisments… I think its up to my generation, the #reGeneration , to get back in the streets, take back the media and revolutionize our failing system.

So grateful to be friends with Richard & Judith, two angels of the Earth sharing their love and creative talents with the world!

How do you think we will change the system and create a loving and just world? Comment below. 🙂

xo SB ❤

PS

Here is an inspiring documentary about the roots of Greenpeace and the 60s/70s revolutionary spirit.

Biked to from Big Sur to Carmel today. Met a fellow activist woman solo-bike tourist named Mars heading south to facilitate a workshop on non-violent communication at an Earth First! conference in Santa Barbra. Soul sisters! ❤ She was going to stay at David and Cindalee’s in Cambria too! Small world!

The weirdest thing keeps happening, everytime I pull my bike over to the side of the road, I find lady bug friends hanging out.. not sure what it means but it makes me happy to see so many little friends along the way!

Rob & Kelly met me for lunch at the bottom of Bixby bridge and said our “see you laters”. Ended up in Carmel with my friends Dylan Foster and the Evered family. Dylan used to help run the beach clean up program with me in 2014. We stayed at their faerieland ranch over looking carmel sea and horses on the hillside. Went out to dinner and had a fun time drawing on the table. 😉 So grateful for the Dylan and the Evered family for letting me stay in their love shak and for sharing so much yummy food with me!

While living zero waste is pretty easy once you get the hang of it, the hardest part is refusing free food wrapped in packaging. I have decided that while I will NEVER buy anything wrapped in plastic, I will kindly accept an organic granola bar or something like that if it is given to me for free with love and I could really use it. My tour budget is small and anything helps.

Also 60% of all food in the US goes to waste so I believe in dumpster diving for food and the entire dive movement. My Surfrider activist friend down in Ventura, Ally Gialketsis has a food waste blog, Food Waste Forager, that I highly recommend you check out!

Day 5:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK……. this was my hardest day by far.

Accidentally took a wrong turn on 17 mile drive through pebble beach in Carmel. The only road that keeps reminding you how many miles you went out of the way… 😉 It was beautiful in the Cypress tree shade and riding along the ocean but it was WINDY! The hills of Big Sur were tough but there was only one road and no getting lost. Finally found my way with the help of this man named Craig, he showed me the bike path through monterey and the Salinas river valley. So wonderful getting off of the road and onto a bike path! Ran into my new friend Tito, a French man riding from Patagonia to Alaska, he has been on the road for one year and two months! Tito is the only other bike tourist I know of heading north and I was grateful to ride this windy stretch with him.

On the road there is a sweet community of bicycle tourist and its fun to stop off and talk with them and see where they are headed. All the ones I’ve met are going south except Tito, due to the prevailing southbound winds. The wind pushes them…but it kisses us! 😉 ❤

The ladybug medicine keeps flowing into my life and today they were landing on me while I was riding!

It was interesting to pass through the lavish mansions of pebble beach and then end up in the farm lands and witness the huge inequality of wealth in this county…

After 58 miles the sun was starting to set. My goal was to make it to Santa Cruz but I took a hotel room in Aptos so I didn’t have to ride in the dark. Alone in the hotel room, it was nice to shower and have some space to myself and then I saw it.. a 15 page paper on the bedside table about the owner of the hotel and how much she loves Morro Bay, CA and started feeling a little homesick after this rough day. Love you SLO family!! forever!

Day 6:

Woke up early, biked to Santa Cruz and had such a beautiful day!!!!

Stopped at Staff of Life health food store and had myself a morning smoothie to start my day with the highest of vibes! Staff of Life has over 800 bulk items and an awesome vegan cafe. Met up with my artist & activist friends Sean and Maya whom I met in SLO but now they live in a sweet spot of w. cliff drive. Sean works in water filtration systems and Maya works with todlers at a care center. We took a dip in the Ocean at Natural Bridges beach and then went back to their house.

They live a couple blocks from the beach and their backyard gate opens up to Derby park, supposedly the first recognized skatepark in America! There was a crew of girl skaters that called themselves the “Santa Cruz Lady Lurkers” haha they rip! Sean is an amazing skater and created a sk8 culture zine called Realize where he wrote the first article about my bikinis in 2012! 🙂

Biked over to the lane with Maya and Sean and danced with the Santa Cruz ecstatic dance community in the grass! Watched the sunset and cooked a delicious stir fry back at their house! Maya and I have sister knitted/crocheted bikes!! So stoked on the “Sunday Santa Cruz Special” they shared with me! ❤ Love love love!!

Day 7:

Woke up stoked and biked from Santa Cruz to Half moon bay where I met up with my mom’s bluegrass friend Mimi! 🙂 They met at Puget Sound Guitar Workshop and Mimi is one of the founders of California Coast Music Camp. It was wonderful to spend time with her in her beautiful home and finally write these blogs posts! Biking to SF today! infinite love! SB

Made aebleskivers, received a ceremonial stick n’ poke and lit a candle for Imbolc, the day that we celebrate the passing of Winter and make way for Spring.

It is the day we honour the rebirth of the sun and we may visualize the baby sun nursing from the Goddess’s breast. It is also a day of celebrating the Celtic Goddess Brigid. Brigid is the Goddess of Poetry, Healing, Smithcraft, and Midwifery. If you can make it with your hands, Brigid rules it. She is a triple Goddess, so we honour her in all her aspects. This is a time for communing with her, and tending the lighting of her sacred flame.

Thank you Katy, Steven, Skylove, Govinda & Bryce for the sweet send off on this powerful day. ❤ I love you all so much and miss you all already!!! ❤

Day 1:

Rode from Morro Bay to Cambria on the first day of my tour. Met up with my beautiful friends Ben & Iris and their son Oblio and pup Caleve to explore the first stop of my tour and enchanting up-cycled castle, Nitwit Ridge. Old home of the godfather of up-cycling and original zero waster, Art Beal.

In 1928, he purchased 2 ½ acres of pine-covered hillside in coastal Cambria Pines, California, and began to construct a series of buildings that would eventually ramble across the 250-foot-high ridge. Beal’s one rule was to not pay for anything except cement: he collected shells from the ocean, wood from the hillsides, broken plates from neighbors, and everything else from the city dump. He had previously worked as the City of Cambria’s garbage collector and had his own truck; according to local legend, he was fired because he spent too much time searching through refuse for usable materials. Using only hand tools, Beal worked on his project for over fifty years. Now abandoned it’s lost in time with dust covered food in the cupboards, tools in the shed and clothes in the closet.

Art Beal, Godfather of up-cycling, zero waste and creative fun

Nitwit Ridge

Arch ways

lost in time

Art Beal, Zero waste specialist since the 60s

Abalone stairs with Scott Kam

Love you all!!! ❤ Ben, Iris, Obi & Caleve

Rock on Oblio! ❤

Stayed the night with my friends David and Cindalee Bidwell in Cambria. They are eco-activist-artist-farmers with HUGE hearts of joy! I had a wonderful time sharing a meal, sitting by the fire and talking about bike touring with them! David has biked cross country and shared tips, stories and homemade sauerkraut to take with me on my journey! Cindalee is the flower girl of Cambria, selling flowers on the corner for over 28 years and fell in love with her husband, David at the spot! ❤ So grateful to experience their love and for these two sponsoring my tour!

David & Cindalee Bidwell

Cindalee spent 28 years selling flowers on the corner in Cambria!

Life is good at David & Cindalees! ❤

Me and Cindalee in the morning light

Day 2:

Biked from Cambria to my friends place in Pacfic Valley (south Big Sur). Ryan grew up with Scott in VTA and is a surfing, skaing, big hearted firefighter and Rosalia is a yogi-trash picking-fire dancing goddess in Big Surcus. Thankful that they shared their sanctuary and big sur fire faerie medicine with me!

The hills were intense and so was the sun. Stoked on this incredible weather for the beginning stretch of my ride! Saw coyotes, butterflies, hawks and elephant seals throughout my ride. Made it to PV right before sun down and shared my last meal for a while with my love of 4 years, Scott Kam. He introduced me to Ocean culture, Surfrider and activism when I first met him in 2011.Grateful to share life and love with Scott in SLO. He taught me how to skate, he helped me get sober (3 years now) and most importantly he empowered and inspired me to follow my dreams.

Rosalias protecting faerie herbs she sent with me on my journey! Thank you Sally and Web for the jade and sanctuary! ❤

Saying “see you later” to my best friend and partner of 4 years… Scott Kam, I am forever grateful for all that you have taught me and the love we share.

Floating garden planet

Spring!

Colors of the hillside

Fire Faeries Rosalia and Ryan Webster!

Day 3:

It was a difficult morning saying “see you later” to Scott….but the mountains and bird songs quickly brought me back to my present moment bliss and I received a beautiful message from “KS” at the top of one of these giants! Plastic litters the landscape even in this beautiful place… The majority single use plastic water bottles and other food wrappers. Most of it is on the side of the road engulfed in great bushes of Guardian oak and not possible to get to.

Biked to Pfeiffer Big Sur state park and camped with my beautiful friends Rob and Kelly and their two dogs. 🙂 They spoiled me with food, treats and a sweet fire to say goodnight to. Rob and Kelly run the “Ocean Friendly Gardens” program for SLO Surfrider and have an incredible eco garden in shell beach. They were so fun to have along my journey for the day! Feeling faerie blessed to be spoiled like a princess after the Big Sur hill climbs!! ❤

Big Sur Mountains

What are these? Saw them all over the side of the road throughout big sur!

Being dorks 😉

Creek near camp

camping in the woods

fire light ❤

Rob and Kelly!! ❤ Angels, friends and some of the sweetest people I've ever known.